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Knock It Off
Knock It Off'' '''is the sixth episode in the fourth season of The Powerpuff Girls. Summary The Professor's old college roommate, Dick Hardly, comes for a visit. When he gets his first glance at the girls, he comes up with an idea to create his own and sell them as security systems to make money. Plot Part 1 The Professor gets a call from his old friend, Dick Hardly, who tells him that he's coming over for a visit. The Professor thinks of the times that he and Dick had together at the University they attended (where Dick secretly cheated on his work and slacked off when he wasn't looking). Dick soon arrives, and gets a tour of the household. Just when Dick gets a first glance at the girls and discusses a way to make money off of them, the Professor gets suspicious and asks Dick to leave. Now feeling betrayed, Dick thinks of a way to get revenge on his old friend. Later that day, the girls are about to come home from school when Dick's car pulled up in the drive way, and he offers them a ride home. While riding, he thinks that not having more Powerpuff Girls wouldn't save the world, and asks the girls what they are made of. The girls quickly answer: "Sugar, spice, and everything nice, and an accidental dose of Chemical X." Now at the household, he asks the girls for a sample of Chemical X. They zip to the Professor's lab and back, giving him the flask. Now eager, he rushes into an abandoned evil factory, which he now owns, and uses all the ingredients the girls told him earlier to make his own creation—The Powerpuff Girls with Chemical X-treme (which are actually knock-offs of the originals). Part 2 The next day, Dick shows off his creations to the New York City public. Sometime later, the creations rush a giant alligator monster (who bares a striking resemblance to Wally Gator) to safety while on his way to work. This footage is publicly broadcast, and the Utonium family is watching. The Professor acts a little suspicious at the real girls, thinking that they went to New York, and asks them when they went. The girls lie to him, saying that they went there earlier. While in bed, the girls feel guilty about lying to him, but believe it will all turn out good. During the following days, Dick's factory starts expanding and he was now making more knock-off girls all over the world: Japan, France, India, Germany, and Egypt. However, there were some knock-offs that he rejected. So, they stayed at his factory for repairs. Some of the rejects are so disfigured, they ended up as hideous mutants. Meanwhile, Prof. Utonium is starting to act more and more suspicious. Eventually, the girls trust in Dick quickly fades when they see an infomercial featuring him advertising "The Powerpuff Girls with Chemical Xtreme", in which they also learn that Dick sold his Powerpuff Girls to anyone who pay him for them, even criminals. Now knowing that Dick lied to them, the girls fly to his factory, confront him, and ask for the Chemical X they gave him, back. But rather than give it back to them, he psychotically swallows it whole (flask and all). Suddenly, the effects of the Chemical X he swallowed transforms Dick into a radioactive monster. The girls battle Dick, but they are no match for him and he leaves them all unconscious. Meanwhile, the Professor, whose suspicions lead him into thinking Dick was behind all of this, drives all the way to his factory. Noticing the fight inside, he rushes into the factory, but arrives too late, as Dick has almost extracted all of the Chemical X out of the girls using a machine he invented. He begs Dick to stop, as he is destroying them, but Dick orders all the rejects to take him away. While they do so, the Professor tearfully expresses his strong and deep fatherly love towards the real girls. This sparks the reject girls minds into knowing that Dick never gave them love. The rejects turn against him, cling to his body, and sacrifice themselves to consume Dick in an inferno. However, a few of the rejects that survive release the girls, now dead from being completely drained of their Chemical X, and they ask the Professor to take his family and escape before it's too late. He does so, leaving Dick behind, and, now far away from the burning factory, is grief-stricken over the loss of the girls. However, his love quickly revives them, and the Professor, now happy, tells the girls: ''"Old Dick may have gotten the formula right, but the one ingredient he forgot, was '''LOVE." As the girls and the Professor leave, Dick Hardly screams one last time as the factory continues to burn, and the narrator says: "Guess like the love you take is equal to the love you make." Trivia *The title is a play on the word "knock-off", which means a cheaper and/or poorly-constructed version of something, such as what Dick was doing with the Powerpuff Girls. *In airing order, this is the last episode to use the Hanna-Barbera ending logo before William Hanna's death in 2001. *This episode is one of the more serious and darker episodes of the series. *The episode premiered nine days after The Powerpuff Girls Movie premiered in theaters. *The episode could also be seen as an allusion to The Clone Saga, a Spider-Man storyline which ran from 1994 to 1996, and depicted Spider-Man facing an armada of clones created by the supervillain Jackal, including the Scarlet Spider, Kaine, and Spidercide. *Although this episode was produced in 2001, this is the last episode to use traditional hand-colored cel-animation and the last one to use the template for the January 1999 version of the 1998-2001 animated episode outro. As future episodes of this series would exclusively use digital ink-and-paint and computerized cels, this episode was meant as a way for the series to say "Farewell" to hand-colored production cels and traditional cel animation after three years. *After this episode finished production, Rough Draft produced their final TV series to be produced with cel animation, Robot Jones, produced in 2002 and 2003. By the end of 2003, Rough Draft Animation Studio management decided that audiences wanted only television programs produced using digital ink-and-paint and closed down their traditional cel animation department. The cel animation desks and cels from episodes were removed or sold off and the animation-specific rostrum cameras along with an episode outro production cel of the girls (in smaller size and in their normal poses) created exclusively for this episode was dismantled and scrapped. The reused episode outro production cels (complete with the November 1998, January 1999, and April 2000 star explosion cels and the November 1998 and January 1999 cels of the girls in their normal poses (in usual large sizes and in normal poses) were then reused for color-corrected versions of 1998-2001 episodes that were produced using computers and cel animation at an American not-for-profit animation studio between late 2003 and early 2006. *This episode is also the last one to use the February 2001 variant of the 1998-2001 3D star explosion and the January 1999 variant of the 1998-2001 golden star shower. *Also, in the animated outro for this episode, when the girls appear, they are zoomed out slightly further than usual. *This is the fourth episode to have a character die in the show, which is Dick. (The first being The Rowdyruff Boys in the synonymous episode of the same name, the second being the Broccolids in "Beat Your Greens", and the third being Bunny in "Twisted Sister"). *The directions to Townsville that Professor Utonium gives to Dick in the opening refer to actual freeways in the city of Los Angeles. If we applied the Professor's description to real life, Townsville would be located in Pasadena, which is where the 210 (nearly) junctions with the Harbor Freeway (aka Highway 110), roughly 15 miles east of the 101. *This was the first episode to credit Bubbles' voice actress as Tara Strong, since she married her husband Craig Strong in 2000. *This was the only episode that someone destroys the Powerpuff Girls by taking their Chemical X life energy, but are brought back to life thanks to the deep fatherly love of the Professor. *This is the third time the girls die, the first was in The Rowdyruff Boys, the second was in Mojo Jonesin'. In the first and third times, they are revived by the power of love. The second time, they are revived by some friends, who used their last bit of Chemical X, which they had previously received by a disguised Mojo Jojo, to do so. *In one scene of Dick overlooking his rejects, look closely and you can see that one of them bears a resemblance to the Dynamo. *When the rejects turn on Dick, a buck-toothed Bubbles says "Only a master of evil, Dick", a reference to the line: "Only a master of evil, Darth" during the confrontation between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader on the Death Star in Star Wars. *The robots seen remorsefully looking at the scenery when the Powerpuff Girls Xtreme saved Japan resemble that of (from left to right) Mazinger Z, Ultraman, and Getter Robo. *It's possible that Townsville is in California because according to the license plate on Dick's car, it's from California and the license plate also says the car was made in June 2001. It also says PROF-DIK on the license plate. *It is hinted that this episode was produced in June 2001, seeing as the Professor's license plate was labeled with the year 2001. *National Public Radio (NPR) is referenced in this episode, making it the only time a real-life radio brand was mentioned in the series. * The villain in India named Raja Jaja is a human and Indian version of super-villain Mojo Jojo. * The Narrator's last line in this episode, the love you take is equal to the love you make, is referring to the song "The End" by the Beatles. Production Notes *This episode was made in 2001. *This episode was the 45th episode made, but aired as the 49th. Therefore, some digitally inked episodes aired before this episode did. Goofs * When this episode first aired on Cartoon Network, the episode incorrectly had a 2000 copyright date at the end. Later reruns corrected this to 2001. * It's unclear how the Girls found Dick's hideout. * The Professor said that "the one ingredient Dick forgot was love", however, the only ingredients known to make the girls were sugar, spice, everything nice, and Chemical X. Perhaps, it can be gleaned that either the Professor was being poetic, that you need to be in a lovely mood while making the girls, or that love is an ingredient due to love being nice and one of the ingredients is "everything nice". Category:Episodes Category:Episodes directed by Robert Alvarez Category:Episodes directed by Craig McCracken Category:Two-Part Episodes Category:Episodes focusing on Professor Utonium Category:Episodes focusing on all three girls Category:Episodes where The Powerpuff Girls do not save the day Category:Episodes where Professor Utonium saves the day Category:Dark Episodes Category:2002 episodes Category:Horror Episodes Category:Episodes where Professor Utonium sobs and cries